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Assad’s regime steps up anti-Daesh push near Sweida
 [ARABNEWS] Syrian regime forces bombed late Sunday a desert area under the control of ISIS near the province of Sweida in southern Syria, a war monitor said."The bombing and fighting between the regime forces and ISIS have intensified during the evening and are continuing," said Rami Abdel Rahmane, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "The regime is advancing to the north and northeast of Sweida," adjacent to the desert zone of the southern province, he told AFP. This military operation would be "the start of a regime offensive to dislodge IS (ISIS) from this pocket" in the Badiya desert of Sweida, he said, adding that "a major military reinforcement (of regime troops) is massing" in the area. The fighting comes as Russia failed in its negotiations to free some 30 civilian hostages of the Druze religious minority taken by ISIS last month. The kidnappings followed a series of coordinated attacks on Sweida province which left more than 250 people dead. On Sunday, the Observatory and news website Sweida24 announced that ISIS had decapitated one of the hostages, a 19-year-old male student. This execution, the first since the abductions, came "after the failure of the negotiations with the regime forces," according to the Observatory. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an Arab-Kurd alliance which fought against ISIS with the support of the US, indicated Sunday that it was ready to exchange with ISIS captured forces of Evil for the remaining Druze civilian hostages. Posted by: Fred 2018-08-07 |
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